Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve outcomes for (a) restless legs syndrome and (b) other rare conditions.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to providing high-quality care and support to people with all types of health conditions, including restless legs syndrome (RLS) and rare health conditions, to ensure that they live independent and healthier lives for longer. This means having access to the latest services and treatments, as well as supporting their families and unpaid carers.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence publishes clinical knowledge summaries (CKS) as a source of supporting information mainly for National Health Service staff working in primary care. The CKS on the diagnosis and clinical management of RLS was updated in February 2025 and is available at the following link:
https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/restless-legs-syndrome/
General practitioners are supported on RLS by neurology referral or specialist Advice and Guidance. This includes 27 specialised neurological treatment centres across the NHS in England, which provide access to neurological multidisciplinary teams to ensure that patients with RLS can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.
The UK Rare Diseases Framework sets out four priorities collaboratively developed with the rare disease community, and these include: helping patients get a final diagnosis faster; increasing awareness of rare diseases among healthcare professionals; better coordination of care; and improving access to specialist care, treatments, and drugs. We remain committed to delivering under the framework, and published the annual England Action Plan in February 2025. The framework, published in January 2021, is available from the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-rare-diseases-framework
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Government plans announce its choice of British lateral flow test after the signing of contracts in March 2021 with Omega Diagnostics and Global Access Diagnostics in order to meet the target of having the majority of UK lateral flow tests produced in the UK.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government continues to explore different operating models to make best use of the capacity created in the United Kingdom diagnostics manufacturing industry. There are a number of ongoing conversations between Global Access Diagnostics, Omega and third party test developers which we hope will provide opportunities to further increase UK manufacturing output of lateral flow tests.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many neurology appointments for people with Parkinson’s disease have been delayed or cancelled since January 2020 as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Figures on the number of neurology appointments delayed or cancelled and the number of Parkinson’s patients who have experienced a deterioration on their condition are not available, and no specific assessment of the adequacy of access to specialised neurology services during the COVID-19 outbreak for advanced Parkinson’s patients has been made.
Early in the pandemic NHS England and NHS Improvement advised in-person consultations “should only take place when absolutely necessary”. Providers have been rolling out remote consultations using video, telephone, email and text message services as a priority, including for those with neurological conditions.
To support the delivery of high-quality services for patients with neurological conditions during the pandemic, the Association of British Neurologists (ABN) published a range of guidance in this important area. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also provided advice on prioritisation for community services during the pandemic which set out how to meet the needs of people with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s safely and effectively. The guidance can be found at the following links:
www.theabn.org/page/covid19_response
Furthermore, the ABN has now published specific guidance on recommencing neurology services in the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, including those for people suffering with Parkinson’s disease. This guidance contains assessments on which services and patients require urgent prioritisation, taking into account the severity and onset of symptoms. This is available at the following link:
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to specialised neurology services during the covid-19 outbreak for advanced Parkinson’s patients; and what steps he is taking to resume those services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Figures on the number of neurology appointments delayed or cancelled and the number of Parkinson’s patients who have experienced a deterioration on their condition are not available, and no specific assessment of the adequacy of access to specialised neurology services during the COVID-19 outbreak for advanced Parkinson’s patients has been made.
Early in the pandemic NHS England and NHS Improvement advised in-person consultations “should only take place when absolutely necessary”. Providers have been rolling out remote consultations using video, telephone, email and text message services as a priority, including for those with neurological conditions.
To support the delivery of high-quality services for patients with neurological conditions during the pandemic, the Association of British Neurologists (ABN) published a range of guidance in this important area. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also provided advice on prioritisation for community services during the pandemic which set out how to meet the needs of people with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s safely and effectively. The guidance can be found at the following links:
www.theabn.org/page/covid19_response
Furthermore, the ABN has now published specific guidance on recommencing neurology services in the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, including those for people suffering with Parkinson’s disease. This guidance contains assessments on which services and patients require urgent prioritisation, taking into account the severity and onset of symptoms. This is available at the following link:
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of Parkinson’s patients who may have experienced a deterioration in their condition during the covid-19 outbreak; and what guidance he is providing to help identify patients in urgent need.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Figures on the number of neurology appointments delayed or cancelled and the number of Parkinson’s patients who have experienced a deterioration on their condition are not available, and no specific assessment of the adequacy of access to specialised neurology services during the COVID-19 outbreak for advanced Parkinson’s patients has been made.
Early in the pandemic NHS England and NHS Improvement advised in-person consultations “should only take place when absolutely necessary”. Providers have been rolling out remote consultations using video, telephone, email and text message services as a priority, including for those with neurological conditions.
To support the delivery of high-quality services for patients with neurological conditions during the pandemic, the Association of British Neurologists (ABN) published a range of guidance in this important area. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also provided advice on prioritisation for community services during the pandemic which set out how to meet the needs of people with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s safely and effectively. The guidance can be found at the following links:
www.theabn.org/page/covid19_response
Furthermore, the ABN has now published specific guidance on recommencing neurology services in the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, including those for people suffering with Parkinson’s disease. This guidance contains assessments on which services and patients require urgent prioritisation, taking into account the severity and onset of symptoms. This is available at the following link:
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are employed on a full-time equivalent basis in the (a) cancer, (b) cardiovascular disease, (c) stroke care, (d) diabetes, (e) respiratory disease, (f) adult mental health services and (g) alzheimer’s and dementia care teams.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
NHS Digital publishes hospital and community health services workforce statistics for NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England. However, the information held by NHS Digital does not capture sufficient level of detail to identify those working in specific care teams.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the next stage of its Challenge on Dementia builds on the progress made by (a) the Dementia Research Institute and (b) other such initiatives.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government remains strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and dementia care and the United Kingdom research community is playing a significant role in the global effort to find a cure or a major disease-modifying treatment by 2025.
We are now reaching the end of our current dementia strategy ‘the Challenge on Dementia 2020’. The Department has begun work with a range of stakeholders, including from the research community, to develop a new dementia strategy for England for the period 2020 to 2025. We expect to publish this early next year.
Research is one of the themes of the current dementia strategy. It will remain central to the post-2020 vision for dementia.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people in each profession will constitute the 20,000 additional staff guaranteed to Primary Care Networks by 2023-24; and what criteria his Department uses to calculating the demand for those posts.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The new GP contract framework, published on 31 January 2019, set out plans for an ‘Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme’ in Primary Care Networks. This will provide guaranteed funding for up to an estimated 20,000 additional staff by 2023/24 and will fund new roles for which there is both credible supply and demand. The funding available will be phased and will meet a recurrent 70% of costs for additional clinical pharmacists, physician associates, first contact physiotherapists and first contact community paramedics; and 100% of the costs of additional social prescribing link workers. The actual distribution of the workforce increase across these five roles will depend on the choices that individual networks make, working with their system partners, and taking in to account their existing workforce.
From 2020/21, each network will be allotted a single combined maximum reimbursement sum, covering all five staff roles, offering Primary Care Networks flexibility to decide how many of each of the reimbursable staff they wish to engage, within their Additional Roles Sum.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations on page 75 of the Faculty of Pain Medicine published in The Core Standards for Pain Management Services and the recommendations on page 8 of the General Medical Council published in Good practice in prescribing and managing medicines and devices, what assessment he has made of the potential benefit to people with chronic pain of receiving an annual review for their pain management services.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
No specific assessment has been made of the potential benefit to people with chronic pain of receiving an annual review for their pain management services.
Whilst ultimately a matter for local processes and individual clinicians, annual reviews of patients with long term conditions or ongoing medication needs are a routine part of patient care. Annual reviews are also a key feature in guidance on the management of long-term diseases and disorders produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), such as ‘Neuropathic pain in adults’, and in clinical guidance produced by other organisations. NICE is in the process of developing a new clinical guideline ‘Chronic pain: assessment and management’, due for publication in August 2020.
More information about this work can be found at the following link:
www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-ng10069
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Brigg and Immingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly as an observer; and whether his Department has encouraged Taiwan to participate in technical meetings of the World Health Organisation.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department continues to support the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on this topic. The Government is working with likeminded countries to lobby the World Health Organization (WHO) at official level to issue an invitation to Taiwan to observe the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May.
The United Kingdom continues to support Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations where statehood is not a prerequisite and where Taiwan can make a valuable contribution. The UK believes the WHA and related technical meetings of the WHO meet these criteria.